I believe the winter forecast they are giving has some pros and cons. Let’s talk about what is currently taking place and what could happen.

EL NIÑO…

El Niño is simply a warming of the waters off the coast of South America in the Pacific Ocean.

In this pattern, disturbances from the Pacific can provide an increase chance of precipitation.

El Niño is a correlation to increased precipitation, not to temperatures.

WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW IN THE PACIFIC?

Here is a look at the sea surface temperatures out in the Equatorial Pacific. While these temperatures are not too impressive, it does show signs to a weak El Niño event.

THE “INITIAL” FORECAST

There is a good chance that we will see more precipitation than normal in the Southern Plains. Remember, El Niño links to increased precipitation. I believe this will happen due to disturbances moving out of the Pacific and over the southern states. The Climate Prediction Center agrees—their current outlook for January-March 2015 shows Above Normal precipitation chances for southern states.

Temperatures are tricky to forecast. Temperatures do not fully correlate to an El Niño or La Niña pattern. Based off how the weather has performed across the USA recently (colder than normal winters and summers), one would believe that this trend is likely to continue. If this does happen, we can expect a colder than normal winter—which equals the potential of wintry weather for us.

The Climate Prediction Center has parts of Texas under a risk of seeing below normal temperatures.

The information here should be taken just like a forecast we give you daily. This can change. However, the trends over the last few months are indicating that a weak El Niño pattern is possible.

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